Become a morning person. How to end insomnia for $520.99

Be a morning person. How to end insomnia for free.<p>1. Sleep with the curtains open. Wake up with sunrise.<p>2. Immediately exercise outside. It could be anything, walking, running, swimming, biking, calestetics, just as long as its <i>outside</i>.<p>3. At sundown, turn off all electronics. Using pencil, paper, and a 40 watt bulb, refactor your code, do design work and the next day's plans. If you feel like you haven't gotten enough work done on your computer before sundown, then spend less time screwing around. (Then again, if you refactored and planned properly the night before, this problem begins to disappear.)<p>4. Go to sleep 8 hours (or whatever you require) before sunrise.<p>BONUS: Get a dog, cat, or child. Although these aren't free, they'll make sure you're up at sunrise.<p>Been doing this for years. I may not have DSPS, but this does the same thing as OP's approach for $520.99 less.

I attempted some of the things that you talk about here: tracking sleep + bright overhanging light + sunrise alarm clock. None of it helped, and I didn't want to continue spending even more money on "things" - I attempted a more drastic solution. I changed apartments and made sure to get a room where the windows face east.<p>I started waking up with the sun every day. It's still a bit of a problem on cloudy days, but it feels a more natural way to function than all the gadgets.

I recently changed my sleep cycle by a few hours. I bought a Zeo and started turning off the computer an hour before going to sleep. During that time I'd read, do some stretches, brush my teeth, meditate, take 3mg of melatonin, then go to sleep. When I wake up, I go out for a 20+ min run or go to the gym, then eat breakfast. I used to wake up anywhere from 10-12. Today I woke up at 6 and my alarm only needed to go off once. It's a Sunday, I had no reason to wake up so early but I'm doing it every morning now. My goal is to wake up at 5 every morning without the use of an alarm clock and without the melatonin. As far as I know I'm not suffering any negatives from the melatonin, though.<p>Here's my review of the Zeo: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1358589" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1358589</a>

I really appreciate the recommendation for Flux. My sleep schedule has been bouncing all over the place since quitting my job, and the last three days have been unbearably bad. (Awake until 6/7/8 AM.) I'd really like to sync myself such that I can be awake and productive by mid-morning.

I've been using F.lux on my macbook and my desktop for a while and can confirm it is awesome. I can <i>feel</i> the difference in the evening as my eyes are more relaxed from the usual strain of bright LCD monitors (I have dual monitors, which doesn't help)...<p>Additionally, I used to live in a basement with bad lighting and so I would go to bed at 3am and get up around 10am when the sun would finally shine in my room. About two weeks ago I moved into an apartment with plenty of natural light and I've been getting up at 7am and going to bed at midnight, as well as feeling significantly better and more alert overall

When I was in high school I did something similar for waking up, albeit on a much lower budget.<p>My dad had a bunch of old X10 automation stuff laying around which I used to rig all of the lights in my room (a light switch unit for the overhead lights and a wall-wart style unit for my reading light) for remote control. Same with the stereo.<p>Then I programmed the control unit to fade in the lights in the morning and eventually power on the stereo which was looping an ocean sounds file I'd found somewhere. I came to really enjoy waking up in that way. I would have preferred natural light, but with Alaskan summers I needed room darkening blinds, and I didn't have a trivial way to automate those.<p>The whole project took about an hour and didn't cost me anything. The X10 stuff is pretty cheap now, but there is also a lot of much higher quality automation equipment available very cheap these days.

For what it is worth, I wake up at 5ish every morning, then go with the significant other to the gym where we swim or work out. (The membership we got only allows us to use the gym facilities between 5 AM and 9 AM)<p>I used to wake up insanely late on weekends (12ish), but this set everything straight; we can finally enjoy our weekends and go places.<p>Not saying this will work for everyone, but treating it as a romantic "together" activity made it something we stuck to.

For Linux users there is also redshift application -- that is a f.lux analog.<p><a href="http://jonls.dk/redshift/" rel="nofollow">http://jonls.dk/redshift/</a>

It was scary reading that Wikipedia page. It was like it was written for me. I have been like this since middle school and always wondered if there was a proper name for it other than insomnia.

People interested in this should check out the B-Society: <a href="http://www.b-society.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.b-society.org/</a> This is how they describe themselves:<p>"- Do you love quiet mornings and active evenings?<p>- Do you feel life is too short for traffic jams?<p>- Are you at your most productive after 10 am?<p>Then you might be a B-Person"

I am so excited to try out f.lux, I have been working towards a wake up time of 5am PST (that way I am awake as business gets started on the East Coast) but have hit a roadblock at getting up before 7am.<p>I currently get a ton of natural light in the morning, plus I have a light box I turn on for 30 minutes while I drink my coffee and do my first work of the day. By 9amm, I'm usually out he door for my walk to work in the sunshine - which is when I think my body really wakes up. I bet if I went for a walk to get a cup of coffee at 7am instead I'd get the benefit and reset my circadian rhythm earlier.<p>But falling asleep is the main problem for me actually, I try to go to bed by 11:30pm but I find I am still not able to dose off until around 1am (which used to be my normal bed time), so what ends up happening is that over the course of the week I become mildly sleep deprived. I notice this less of an issue on the weekends, and after reading this post I think this is probably because I don't end my day with my laptop/iPad in bed.<p>Anyone know if there is something like f.lux for the iPad? Guessing not, since it would need to run in the background...<p>Thanks for the useful post

F.lux was written by a friend and classmate from CMU. It rocks.

I think light has correctly been identified as the biggest reasons for insomnia(if you look at plants and animals, light plays a big part in their daily cycles). I have seen following changes really helpful:<p>1. The biggest change that needs to be made, is to have genuine respect for nature's cycles. That is the mindset needs to change from "We can sleep/wake whenever we want" to "Aligning oneself with natures rhythms". All animals and plants do it, except human beings.<p>2. When looking for apartment, look for apartment which lets more of sunlight in. So bedroom should have window/s which lets lot of light in on to the bed (of course it can be controlled with a blind). 2. Even during day time, instead of artificial lights, see if sunlight from windows can be used. 3. Minimize use of monitor(meaning staring at monitor) past 9PM and ideally best to sleep by 10PM. Consistently. Once the pattern is established, your body automatically falls sleep easily around these times.And, with this patten, early morning hours (6AM to 9AM) provide freshest of mind. It is about quality of wakeful hours and not quantity.<p>I've found this to not only provide the best quality of sleep but great clarity of mind and improvement in health.

I started an internship 3 weeks back and this created a requirement for me to change from being a night owl.<p>I didn't spend the $520.99 but I did install F.Lux on my computers and this works REALLY well.<p>I have been sleeping around 11pm every night and wake up around 7am. I also work out around 6 and eat dinner after which probably aids in the wearing down of my body.<p>This is mostly due to F.Lux cause I am on the computer till about 5 minutes before I fall asleep.

Also you can just take 5mg of melatonin at 21:30 and half an hour later turn off the lights and go to bed. You'll wake up early in the morning refreshed. After 3 days of such therapy you turn from owl into lark. First day may be a bit awkward but effect stabilizes fast. You may stop taking pills after some time but if you do be super careful not to stay up late because if you do you will turn into an owl again equally fast.<p>Falling asleep after taking melatonin in interesting feeling. Your breath slows down and it gets shallower. It seems that there are some symptoms of genuinely falling asleep but not all of them. Probably because serotonin mentioned in the article is still high (or something). Funny thing that you don't feel drugged. You feel just physical symptoms of falling asleep not the mental ones. You can easily overcome pill you took and perform any task at almost unhampered performance. Even pull all-nighter despite the pill. But if you go to sleep half an hour after the pill you will fall asleep.<p>520$ buys you 7 year supply of every day melatonin

I can confirm that daylight bulbs really help, especially during the winter.

Yeah. That probably works if you live in a place that has more than two hours of "darkness" (it's 1:41, and it's twilight) during the summer, and that has decent quantities of daylight during the winter.<p>The light adjustment thing works, though, it's just that up north (this being Trondheim, Norway - not that far north, but far enough) you have to enforce by using dark curtains, or even aluminium foil taped on the window. Just wish I had any. The joys of living in student housing - less choice in curtains. So I've gotten used to sleeping even in daylight, since it usually turns up in my room at 3:30 in the morning :P<p><a href="http://www.heavens-above.com/sun.asp?lat=63.417&#38;lng=10.417&#38;alt=0&#38;loc=Trondheim&#38;TZ=CET&#38;SL=1&#38;SN=1&#38;BW=0&#38;SZ=600" rel="nofollow">http://www.heavens-above.com/sun.asp?lat=63.417&#38;lng=10.4...</a><p>Note how there is no twilight ending or starting time.

Here is how: Get a job where 11 am is an okay time to go to bed. Don't do anything but sleep and have sex in your bed. Make your room very very dark when you sleep. See sunlight within 10 minutes of waking up (or very bright florescent lights). Stop drinking caffeine within 16 hours of when you'd like to wake up.

Awesome. Not because I haven't read similar stuff before, but because it's a plan that considers that I can not make radical lifestyle changes that endanger my business (e.g., not read or look at a monitor at night).<p>I thought once I had paid my dues, done the all-nighters, and succeeded that I wouldn't fall back into the grips of insomnia. Now, almost a decade and a new venture later, I'm back at it. I've seen 4:30 AM for many consecutive months. It doesn't feel as easy as it used to, and I'm beginning to think that it's <i>really</i> not healthy.<p>I notice that I'm often tired and ready to sleep around 9:00 PM. If I find myself in a dark place (movie date or something), I'll pass out. Quite embarrassing. But once I'm "over the hump" I'm good for another 8 hours or so.

I've had severe insomnia my entire life - I miss at least one night's sleep a week, often pull overnighters, etc. My mind just won't shut off, or it will but despite being exhausted I am not sleepy.<p>I started exercising daily and meditating at least half an hour a day and now I sleep like a baby. Sometimes it takes a couple hours of reading, but its not a severe problem for me anymore. Exercise or meditation alone didn't do it. Together they give me physical tiredness and mental quiet, which means sleep.<p>Its amazing what physical/mental upkeep will do for you. That being said... I just install F.lux and may try some of this other stuff too!

I've used F.Lux for a bit as part of my sleep cycle; but had to stop. It gave me intense headaches and really really strained my eyes. In the end my optician advised me to stop using it.<p>YMMV of course but do take care :)

I am a DSPS person and this reminds me of this old Seinfeld joke in which Seinfeld talks about how the night guy screws over the morning guy by staying up and the night guy says that morning guy's responsibility is not mine... It's somewhat true with me. But there is somewhat of a hack that I use when I do have to wake up early:<p>Do what you enjoy doing before bedtime in the morning - but after your most interesting meeting of the day first over coffee or breakfast. This has helped me get through the day and reset (at least for the next weekday or two).

Left off my post is the now frequently mentioned problem of bright light from the ipad at night. The light is bad for going to sleep and solutions like F.lux don't work on the ipad. Turning down the brightness helps a little, but as I mention in the post, the real problem is that the blue light is not filtered out. Currently, I just stop myself from using the iPad at night, which is so unfortunate--especially since I like it as an e-reader.<p>Will someone please provide a solution to this problem...I, for one, would be willing to pay for it.

I had this same problem and it really didn't get fixed until I got a regular job. I have no self-discipline :-)<p>The light thing does work though. There are studies backing it and I've tried it and it definitely works.<p>One funny thing about one of those studies. They somehow found "evidence" that light on the inside of elbow (I think its called the cubital tunnel area) had the same effect on circadian rhythms, but I think this was later disproven.

This is true, but quite simplified. I always recommend a great book by the pioneer of sleep science William C. Dement "The Promise Of Sleep" <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Promise-Sleep-Medicine-Connection-Happiness/dp/0440509017/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Promise-Sleep-Medicine-Connection-Happ...</a> It explains this and many other aspects of sleep that you need to know to manage it effectively.

F.lux seems neat, and it has a really wonderful bug on the new Macbook Pro models: Every time the graphics switch between discrete and integrated, flux lowers the display's color temperature. Essentially, the already-lowered temperature gets reinterpreted as the initial daylight temperature. And then an appropriate adjustment is made to lower it even further for the evening...

I've got no trouble getting up at 6-8 am. If left to my own devices, I get up quite a bit later, though. But never mind my actual sleep phase (or whether I sleep 6,8 or 10 hours), it still takes me 30-60 minutes to fall asleep. So becoming a morning person isn't a good fix for everyone.<p>(and the "3 Guinness" method has its flaws in the long run.)

Wow, this sounds like me. I generally hit the hay around 3am-5a and sleep for 5 or 6 hours.<p>However, when I do go to bed, I fall immediately asleep for 5 or 6 hours and I'm pretty awake and alert in the mornings generally.<p>Great article, and gives me some ideas for if I ever have to adjust to 'normal' hours.

This is really intriguing. I've the tendency to slip into a 10am-2am schedule really easily if allowed. The only reason I'm on a good schedule now is my gf's work is an 8am job. Having something like this would certainly make it easier. Just might have to do this.

Can anyone offer some more evidence that this is effective? I would love for it to work (if left to my own natural rhythm, I get sleepy at 4am and wake late afternoon), but a single person is to small a sample to convince me of the general application.

On a mac, you can press command + shift + 8 to invert the colours of your display. This can be done on Windows 7 by pressing ctrl + + and modifying the magnifier settings, or on linux UIs by setting a key binding in the keyboard settings.

This might work as a way for adjusting wake-up time: <a href="http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2007/11/the_early_bird_gets_the_caffeine_pill.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2007/11/the_early_bird_g...</a>

This was a great article if for no other reason than that it just helped me diagnose my insomnia. Knew my symptoms but didn't know the name for my particular type. And F.lux seems like a great first step. Thanks

Inspired by this guide, I purchased $8 sunglasses today and wore them when it turned evening. So far they seem effective in lulling me to sleep :P

Is it bad that I'm reading this guide at 3 AM, on a bright computer screen, wide awake, when I have work tomorrow at 9 AM?

Feels extremely relevant after pulling an allnighter and sleeping 12 hours after that. And now I should head to work...

Same solution for $20 or less: <a href="http://www.blublocker.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.blublocker.com/</a>

thank you for the post. i feel this pain for years.

I found this to be absolutely fascinating, and I'm extremely excited about the linked f.lux application!<p>I read about this melatonin-suppressing blue light theory recently. It seems very plausible to me, since I have the tendency to stay up arbitrarily late doing absolutely nothing productive on the computer. I thought it would be brilliant to modify the display settings to ramp down the blue light after a certain time.<p>This struck me as such a novel approach to the issue that it never even occurred to me that such an application might already exist! I also didn't know that so many other people had the same general set of problems with sleeping.

This describes a mild form of insomnia. The sort where you have a hard time falling asleep, staying asleep, and having quality sleep when you do, is the most difficult to treat. I don't enjoy it.

Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome?? That's called being in college...